


And We Are All Together

by leiascully



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-27
Updated: 2006-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty pages of things that maybe never happened to the cast and crew of Sports Night over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Are All Together

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the crazy ensemble fic that I can't bear to break it up, because I wrote it all together over the course of a week and a half or so. Invokes basically every pairing ever, even ones I don't necessarily agree with, as a sort of experiment.   
> Disclaimer: _Sports Night_ and all related characters are the property of Aaron Sorkin.

Dana loved the first warm days in New York, for the sudden greening of the trees she passed at the corner of the park on the way to work, for being able to crack her one window that opened for the spring breeze, and for the first day Natalie didn't wear tights to work and Dana could press her up against the wall of the office and slide her hand up Natalie's bare thigh and make Natalie moan until Dana had to grab the remote one handed to turn up her television as she kissed Natalie's white throat. In the spring, Dana had to keep air freshener and towelettes in her desk, to dilute the scent of sex, and Natalie went around the office with a smile and the flush of satisfaction on her pretty cheekbones and at the low dip of her shirts. Dana had to be gentle - Natalie's pale skin was easy to mark - but under the collars of her own shirts, she was branded by passion, for all of Natalie's enthusiasm translated easily from work to sex as her hips moved against Dana's palm in the office, and as Natalie suddenly moved to kiss the ticklish backs of Dana's knees or the tops of her breasts amid the jumble of unbuttoned fabric.

\+ + + +

And then there was the one day when Danny looked at her with his lovely eyes and she was caught in a moment of unaccustomed stillness, and he smiled and said only, "Dana."

"Oh," she said. "Oh."

He touched the tips of two fingers to her cheek, in the hollow just under the arch of her cheekbone, and she understood everything. All the little touches over the years, and all the time he had been spelling words of love in an abbreviated sign language, like a catcher calling curve balls. It was startling and it broke her heart.

"Oh," she said again, and he folded her into his arms.

\+ + + +

Dan didn't remind Casey of the kisses after Saint Crispin's Day, of the passion in Casey's voice as he had whispered "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" again to the joint of Danny's jaw as they rode the elevator up to their hotel rooms, their stomachs dropping away for different reasons than the altitude. But he looked at Casey and remembered the kisses infused with alcohol, the salt taste of Casey's breastbone, and the way it felt right to wake up against each other. It still felt right on the farbetween instances they found excuses to be together. No, Lisa had never understood Casey, and there were days Dan didn't either.

But Casey dropped into the cab beside him after the show. "I did remember our anniversary," he said. "I wanted to surprise you." He lifted Dan's chin for a kiss, endless and sweet. "Flowers were too girly," he breathed, "but I got you this." It was Shakespeare, gilt-edged and beautiful, and a tiny model of a yacht in a bottle of blown blue glass. Casey always had had strange and wonderful taste in gifts. Dan's smile was crooked and he bit his lip against the delight and the pain of this complicated poignant affair, but he kissed Casey back hard and put aside the troubles for another day.

\+ + + +

Dana cried a little the first time she found herself in Casey's bed: he held her so tenderly, like the most fragile thing he'd ever seen, and he pulled her into his lap and kissed her collarbones as if he'd always known she loved it, and he knew her better than anyone, and when he moved in her, it felt like home.

"You are so beautiful," he said, low and gentle, and she was so overwhelmed and happy she couldn't stop the tears, just a few, and he kissed them away with a worried look. She put her head on his broad chest and told him she was fine, just fine, and he rubbed her back.

"I love you," he said, and she laughed and sniffled against him and he kissed her shoulder and she could feel him smiling through the kiss.

\+ + + +

Too much Manischewitz and too much laughter and Dan found himself kissing Jeremy. It was a long kiss, partly because he was too startled to break away, and they were breathing against each other and it was all matzoh and sweet wine and Dan found that he was enjoying it all, and that Jeremy kissed well, with an unsurprising attention to detail. An ordinary seder, an ordinary evening, and it had turned into this dream sequence of Jeremy's mouth wedged against his and Jeremy's hands on his forearms.

"I'm sorry," said Jeremy after a while, and sighed, pushing his glasses up. Dan's arms felt cold where Jeremy's hands had been. "That wasn't what I meant to do."

"You seemed pretty committed at the time," said Dan, off balance. Jeremy put one hand on his hip and pushed the other through his hair and paced back and forth across Dan's apartment as Dan stood there, feeling foolish somehow, and stared at the glasses with the little pools of wine at the bottom, the two glasses on the table among the leftovers.

"Danny, I..." Jeremy burst out, and Dan solved it by putting one arm across the back of Jeremy's shoulders and dragging Jeremy close for a kiss. Jeremy kissed like a starving man this time, desperate, hungry, and Dan kissed him back for all the years of loneliness and frustration watching Casey flirt with Dana and breaking all their hearts over Lisa. He kissed him for bad dates and he kissed him for long nights in an empty bed and he kissed him for Jeremy, too, and Jeremy's endearing, anal, anxious, utterly charming self. Jeremy sighed again against Dan's mouth and pushed his hands up under Dan's sweater and Dan decided that Jeremy was a little bit like Hannukah, a new small gift every day.

\+ + + +

It was late. Dana sat on the couch in her office with her bare feet drawn up under her and Natalie curled against her side as they half-watched the game and read over notes from the week's shows. They were drinking beer, not drunk, but having a beer, and Natalie now and again would lift her bottle and peer through the green glass.

"I don't understand why Danny hates soccer so much," Natalie said absently. "Just look at their thighs."

"Danny's a breast man, not a leg man," said Dana without looking up, and Natalie giggled.

"How do you know?" She gave Dana bedroom eyes over the rim of the bottle, and Dana turned and drew the back of one finger down Natalie's neck into her shirt.

"Spend enough time with a man, you notice where he's looking," said Dana. "Danny and Casey and I have been together for a long time. Not like that, but you know. I know."

"And Casey?"

"Casey," said Dana with relish, "is an ass man. And legs. Casey likes legs that go all the way to the floor."

"Don't everyone's?" asked Natalie. "Oh, come on, move the ball!" She sat up to shout at the television and braced her elbows on her knees.

"Mine do," said Dana. "Yours do. Sally," she dragged the name out for a moment with disdain, "has legs that go all the way down to hell." Natalie toasted Dana and took a long pull on her beer. There was a knock on the door and Dan stuck his head in without waiting for a response.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

"Oh, Danny!" Dana said with exaggerated innocence, and let her eyes drag over him. "We were just...talking about you."

"Have you been drinking?" he asked suspiciously, and came into the room. "'Cause I don't think Casey can take Boogie Shoes right now."

"We are drinking a beer," said Dana primly. "We are not drunk. We are professionals."

"Come fucking on!" yelled Natalie at the soccer players on the screen. "The goal! Put the ball in the goal!"

"Yes, I can see that. Professionals." Dan hesitated. "Did I walk in on something?"

"Natalie and I are comparing notes."

"Oh." He turned to go, and then turned again. "What were you saying about me?"

"Dana says you're a breast man," Natalie said brightly. "Are you a breast man, Danny?" She looked down a moment at her own breasts and then expectantly up at him. Dana looked up too, her smile sliding to the right.

Dan looked, apparently involuntarily, and swallowed hard. "Did I miss a memo somewhere?"

"It's a simple question," said Natalie. "Are you a breast man?"

"You know I'm a team player, Nat, but what's going on?"

She pushed her chest forward with her elbows still on her knees. "Are...you...a breast man?"

Dan blew out a long breath and tried to look above their heads. "I enjoy a good breast now and again. You know, in the larger context of the woman. Does that answer your question?"

"For now," said Dana, "but if we have any other concerns, we'll make sure to call on you first." Dan gave her a quizzical look and backtracked, and Natalie and Dana laughed until they were almost in tears, and Dana weighed Natalie's breasts in her hands through the sweater and bra.

"World class," she pronounced, and Natalie kissed her hard.

\+ + + +

It was Danny and Casey, Casey and Danny, as was and ever shall be, and Casey loved every minute of it. He had chosen Dan over Conan and it was every day still the right choice. He told Dan that, sometimes, usually in the mornings before Dan was actually awake, because there was something about the light that came through the windows of Dan's apartment in the mornings that brought out Casey's romantic side. Dan slept heavily enough that he missed it, most times, but now and again his crooked pretty mouth would curve into a satisfied smile and his eyes would drift open.

"Tell me again," he said sleepily one morning.

"I just did," Casey protested, head propped on one hand. "You don't get instant replays in romance."

"What if I ask nicely?" Dan rolled over and put a hand on Casey's back. "I believe my powers of persuasion are well documented." Casey laughed and leaned forward, putting his forehead against Dan's.

"You're the right choice, Danny."

And Danny smiled that smile that made everything right and kissed Casey and went back to sleep. Casey watched Danny breathe for a while and then went off to shower, whistling.

\+ + + +

Natalie loved Dana afterhours rumpling her sheets, and the way Dana's back arched so that her breasts stood up, and the way her eyes narrowed in ecstacy, and the way Dana wasn't quite so bossy in bed as she was everywhere else, but still Dana, and still a delight. She loved Dana in the office, somehow pulling off both stern and feminine.

She just loved Dana, when it came down to it, and had since the dusty open spaces of Texas and the cramped, unhappy prospects of Lone Star Sports.

\+ + + +

Dana came into the office one evening when Dan was working alone and rustled through his papers with her eyes cast down.

"Hey, Dana. Need something?"

"How are you doing?" she said abruptly, still not looking at him.

"Doin' okay. Working out a little more for the 30s. Jokes are a little flat tonight, I thought I could punch them up. I think we forgot to bring the funny."

"Good," she said. "That's good." Her restless hands picked up his stapler, Casey's picture frames, various pens and pencils, and Dan stopped typing and watched her with one hand on his leg.

"Dana? Do you need something?"

She dropped down on the couch. "Everyone thinks I'm secretly in love with Casey."

Dan pursed his lips. "Should I close the door? I'm going to close the door."

Dana flopped over and put her forearm over her eyes. "Why does everyone think I'm secretly in love with Casey?"

"Because," Dan said as he closed the door, "you're a beautiful woman and he's a handsome man and you work together closely every day. Plus, it's funny to say because you get all flabbergasted."

"I do not get flabbergasted!" Dana sat up. "Be serious, Danny."

"Okay," he said. "I can be serious. I just didn't know we were having a Talk. I thought it was Tuesday."

"It is Tuesday."

"Because on Tuesday, everyone talks about their personal problems with Isaac because there's nothing to do."

"I know what we do on Tuesdays," Dana said irritably, "I've worked here as long as you have."

"And you've had more personal problems."

"Danny!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He looked at his computer for a moment, then closed it and sat on the couch next to Dana, fiddling with a pencil. "All right. It's Tuesday. We'll Talk."

"Thank you," she said, and sat twisting her hands together.

"You know," said Dan conversationally after a few minutes watching Dana fidget, "Talking usually involves, you know, talking. Just to start with."

"It's not an easy conversation to have," she said.

"How about I start with, 'So everyone says you're secretly in love with Casey and you seem to have a problem with that now and why is that because it's never bothered you that much before'?"

"It's not true!" she aid.

"I know it's not."

"It's not true, Danny, and I'll tell you what else. I love Casey. Just not the way everyone thinks. We've known each other for fifteen years. I met Casey when I was 18. Do you think I could be in love with someone for fifteen years and not know it myself?"

"I know," said Dan patiently.

"Of course I love him! We basically grew up together! I just don't love him in the, you know," she gestured, "horizontal surfaces way. It's like a marriage."

"Hopefully most marriages do involve the horizontal surfaces way at some point," Dan said drily.

"Not this one. It's a marriage of convenience." She glared at him. "And it would help if you'd save all that wit for when you're writing for my show instead of when we are trying to Talk."

"Sorry," he said. "But like I said, Dana, people have been saying all of this for years and it's never bothered you this much before. What's on your mind?"

"Maybe..." she said, twisting her hands again. "I...think I'm falling in love with someone else. Have fallen. In love with someone else."

"That's great!" he said. "What's the problem?"

"Everyone expects me to be in love with Casey," said Dana, not looking at him. "I'll look...wanton if I seem interested in someone else."

Dan shook his head. "Nobody will think you're wanton, Dana, partly because no one ever uses that word. For one thing, who will know? And second, who cares? If you and Casey aren't in love, it's your and Casey's business and nobody's going to question that."

She laced her fingers together in a way that looked painful. "This person they will."

Dan leaned forward. "Is it someone at work?"

"Maybe." She looked across the room, as if there were any chance of her eyes meeting his.

"Dana," he said, "this whole Talking thing really would go better if you would talk to me."

"Danny," she said in a completely different voice, and turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide and a little frightened.

"Oh," he said.

"I think," she took a deep shuddery breath, as if she were about to cry, "that people would question this person."

"Dana," he said, and took her hand. "Dana, we can't." His voice was tender.

"I know," she said, still teary. He touched the back of one hand to her face.

"This would kill Casey. This would kill him where he lives."

"I know," she said, and tried to smile, but her mouth wobbled and the smile was unrecognizable. He leaned in very suddenly and kissed her, and she trembled and melted against him. The kiss slipped and he touched his lips to her cheek as he pulled her against him and stroked her back.

"You know," he said quietly as he held her, "that I would do anything for you. And if it weren't Casey between us, I wouldn't even think about how he'd hurt. But ten years with Lisa really screwed him up and some days we are all that's between him and the deep blue sea and I can't do this to him."

"I know," she said.

He let her go reluctantly, kept his hands on her shoulders, brushed a piece of hair from her forehead. "He really loves you, you know."

"I know," she said.

"You couldn't...?"

"It doesn't work like that, Danny." She sighed. He kissed her forehead.

"I know. Sometimes I think it's too bad we can't just all get married."

"Yeah, as if that wouldn't screw up Casey's worldview." She got reluctantly to her feet and he stood up too, and smiled at her.

"You know, Dana, if Casey ever gets his life straightened out, come back and talk to me. It doesn't even have to be Tuesday."

She tried to glare at him and ended up laughing instead, but it was a choking sort of laugh that was half a sob. "Get back to work on my show," she said, and kissed him once more, for luck, and left.

\+ + + +

It was a little restaurant outside of Denver that they dragged Dana to, one night on assignment, and she complained all the way there about her shrimp cocktails and vodka martinis.

"I might get homesick," she warned, wedged between them in the cab.

"Dana, please," said Casey. "How can you be homesick when you're with us? Plus, that place you like for shrimp cocktails isn't open at this time of night."

"Besides" said Dan, "they have the best fajitas in the country. I promise. You can even get yours with shrimp if you want."

And because Danny never lied, they were the best fajitas she'd ever had, and the salsa was beyond compare. The restaurant was tiny, and their table was rickety, but Dana downed a margarita bigger than her head and the boys had tall bottles of dark beer, and they ended up feeding each other bits of chips with their fingers and then the bartender brought over a bottle of tequila, three shot glasses, and a dish of limes. They salted the crease between thumb and forefinger, passing the shaker around with mock solemnity. Danny patted his salt into an even layer as Casey poured and Dana laughed with her head thrown back to be with these men, these men that she loved.

They did three shots apiece, the liquor burning down their throats like joy, and then someone suggested body shots, through the faint haze of booze and laughter. Danny eyed Dana, whose shirt left bare a pale expanse of shoulder and throat, and carefully salted the place where her shoulder sloped into her neck. Dana closed her eyes as Danny's damp mouth moved over her skin, and then he was throwing back the shot and biting the lime and watching her.

Casey picked up the salt shaker and rattled it suggestively at Dana, but she put out a hand to stop him. "Do Danny." Casey tipped his head grabbed Dan's wrist. He dipped his finger in his shot, drawing a line of tequila up the ticklish inside of Dan's wrist and salting it deliberately before he licked it off, his lips almost touching Dan's palm. Danny nearly moaned, a choked sound that came out almost like a sigh and Dana was startled to hear herself sigh. Casey turned slowly toward her and kissed her, his mouth hot and familiar against hers from their college days, and then he drew Danny gently over and kissed him. It was a tentative thing at first, but then Danny's mouth opened against Casey's and something had clearly been decided.

Dana remembered the rest of the night in lime-fragrant fragments: the slant of Dan's collarbones, Casey's broad back, the taste of salt on two different mouths, four legs long and firm against hers in the tumbled sea of hotel bedcovers. She remembered her skin patterned with kisses until the marks overlapped and Dan's mouth slid from her stomach against Casey's mouth and the heat of their bodies against hers, the way they never neglected her, the way she never felt homesick even for a minute, the way she always felt in strange cities, but not here, with Danny and Casey, where she belonged. She remembered her desire like a flame, and her pleasure that lit up the night, and half-waking now and again as one of them moved in his sleep.

She woke in the morning with a headache and a smile. "Oh, God," said Casey, an echo of the night before reinflected, and ran a hand down her front. "Morning, gorgeous," he mumbled, and kissed her shoulder lazily. "And you too, Danny."

"Please tell me you remembered to bring the aspirin this trip," said Danny, curling against Dana's side and reaching over to rub Casey's back. She had always thought it might be awkward, the morning after a threesome, but these were her men, and now that things had happened between them, she could see the way their interactions had led up to it, the crackle of tension not inevitable, but longed-for. It was right somehow. She unwound herself from the tangle of limbs and covers on the bed and found ibuprofen in her purse. They shared a glass of water, wincing at the taste of hotel water, and Danny threw the last drops over her and Casey. She shrieked and Casey shouted and they both tackled Danny, and the wrestling turned into kisses until it was time to go to the airport. She sat in the plane with a hand on each of their knees and napped and she was home wherever she was.

\+ + + +

Dan opened the door one night after several minutes of someone knocking on it. "For God's sake, Casey," he said as he undid the locks and turned the knob, "if you just call first, we won't have to go through this thing where all my neighbors want to kill me."

But it was Natalie in the doorway, small and bright with nervous energy, and Danny's heart thumped. He suddenly felt very concious of the fact that he was in his boxers. "Natalie?"

"Danny," she said, as if she'd been waiting all her life to say his name, and she flung her arms around his neck. Joy rose through his body, a fast burn that left him overstimulated almost to the point of numbness. He staggered backwards and managed to kick the door shut as he went, holding onto her. She was trembling in his arms and he just stood there for a while, stroking her back with one gentle hand, until finally she looked up.

"Hi," he said, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Her arms were still tight around him and he felt like the only still thing in a tipping world. Natalie's eyes were brown and sweet and something in them made his hands slow and his movements gentle. "What's going on, Natalie?"

"I love you," she said, and then stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest, looking even smaller. "I'm sorry. I'll go."

"No!" Dan reached out for her. "What?"

"I love you," she said helplessly. "I'm going. I'm sorry. It's late."

"Natalie, wait," said Danny. "Just...let me put on a shirt or something. Wait. Sit here." He took her wrist and led her to the couch. "I'll be right back, just don't go anywhere." He grabbed the first t-shirt he could find in his room and dragged it over his head as he went back into the living room. Natalie was sitting looking down at her knees.

"Okay," he said, sitting down near her, "let's start over. Hi, Nat, what brings you here at this hour?"

She looked up at him. "I love you, Danny."

"Okay," he said again. "Wanted to make sure I heard that right."

She made the anxious face that got him in the gut every time. "So now that you've heard, what do you say?"

He took her hands. He was a writer, without a script maybe, but he ought to be able to fumble along on his own. It had been a long time but this was Natalie, familiar Nat who was sitting here loving him and he wanted to tell her he loved her back, but it was a matter of working up to it. "I say...thank you. I say I'm flattered. I say that you're a gorgeous girl and that any man would be lucky to have you in his apartment at four in the morning proclaiming your love for him."

Her eyes were wide. She looked ready to bolt: he had written a brush off instead of a lovesong. He could feel her legs tensing where their joined hands rested against her knees. Dan took a deep breath and leaned a little closer. "And I say...this," and he kissed her, and if he hadn't been lost before, he would have been then, with Natalie a perfect armful of woman and yielding against him. She put tentative fingertips on his stomach under his shirt and he wondered, vaguely, why he'd even bothered putting clothes on. Natalie made the little kissing noises that he'd always found irresistible and he couldn't even remember how long he had wanted her.

"Do you want to stay over?" he asked, their foreheads still touching.

"Do you have to ask?" she breathed.

"What did I do to deserve you?" he asked. "God, Natalie, I love you so much."

"I had hoped," she said, and put one hand around the back of his neck the way he liked, and kissed him.

"Will you be offended if we don't have sex tonight?" he asked. "Because I just want to hold you and make sure you're really there."

"I'll be there," she said, quiet and sweet. "You can hold me as long as you want, Danny, as long as we can have sex this weekend, because that's as long as I can wait to get your clothes off."

"You can do that tonight," he said, and picked her up to carry her into the bedroom. "As long as I get to return the favor." She laughed in his arms, his own little miracle, and rested her head on his shoulder. In the bed, she made him sit up so she could peel off his shirt, and between kisses, he undid her buttons until she was down to her underwear under the covers: Dan was a gentleman. He wrapped her up in his arms, holding her against him, and she fitted beautifully against him, nuzzling the base of his throat and kissing the underside of his jaw as he stroked her hair. Her kisses got slower and softer and then she was asleep, with all her skin against his, safe in his bed.

"Danny," she said later, and woke him. She was dreaming, and he felt the sudden rough surge of joy in his chest again as he drifted back to sleep.

\+ + + +

Isaac was the rock they built their church on. He was their confidant. He was their parent. The stroke felled them all. Dana cried in Natalie's arms and they fell asleep crowded onto her couch, too close to be comfortable, but what they needed was reassurance. Casey and Danny came in and found them there and kept a quiet vigil until they too fell asleep, clutching cushions pirated from their own couch.

\+ + + +

Natalie loved that Danny could get his arms around her and lift her onto his desk without ever stopping kissing her. She loved the way he pushed his hands up her thighs under her skirt. She loved the glass walls of the office that meant she could almost be seen, and the threat of Casey coming back any time, and Danny's overwhelming passion that meant he kissed her anyway, everywhere, unbuttoning her shirt like a frantic adolescent but keeping her on the corner of the desk partially sheltered by the bookshelves. She loved the challenge of being quiet when Danny touched her that way and the way he could never keep his breathing even when she slid her foot up his leg in meetings and this way he retaliated, by fucking her during working hours there on his desk. Danny, for all his manners, was adventurous and incredibly dedicated to her pleasure and she couldn't get enough of him.

And after the sex, he was still Danny, courteous and sweet, buttoning her up with sweet solicitude and kissing her gently before she went back to the editing room so that she felt his love trailing behind her like perfume. With him, she felt cherished, a woman of astounding poise, infinitely desirable and beloved.

\+ + + +

It was poker night, and Dana had come to stand behind Danny, charming Danny with his lovely smile and his bad game. She squeezed his shoulder gently with the hand that had come to rest there so naturally and he tipped his head up to look at her and smiled. She was surprised by the sudden rush of warmth she felt at his smile. She could feel the colour building on her cheekbones and she moved closer to Danny.

It had snuck up on her, this awareness of Danny, twined into her preoccupation with Casey. Danny was always there, watching, strong and lonely. He was gallant. He was supportive. He listened quietly and he was a safe place for secrets. At the bar after work he always made sure the women had rides home, no matter how drunk he was himself. She had become unexpectedly fond of him.

Now that she was close to him, she noticed that he smelled good and he was comfortable under her hand. He didn't fidget the way Casey always had when she'd had him under her hands in college, and the few times in the last few years. Danny was stable and she liked that about him. This near, with his cologne drifting around her, with his laughter vibrating under her fingers, she began to love that about him and she wanted to kiss him, to find out how Danny's gentleness translated through the slightly arrogant set of his mouth.

She looked around the table and thought about how she loved this show and these people, Jeremy earnest and unhappy and Natalie pertly vindictive and Casey off somewhere and Isaac laughing at the antics of these young people, all caught up in love and business. Dan leaned back almost imperceptibly so that his head was against her stomach, as if he couldn't not be resting against her when they were so close already. She was laughing and she wanted him. She put her chin on the top of his head. Danny would kiss her, she knew, with his hands chastely on her waist at first, but they would end up tangled together, because Danny was a gentleman but he had deep reserves of passion.

After the two a.m. she'd buy him a drink. It would be a start. And Danny would smile, and she would melt, and after a while, she wouldn't be his best friend's girl anymore. She would be his own.

\+ + + +

It was their anniversary. It was the first time Casey had called Danny his partner like there was something between them, and he'd done it on the air, and Danny felt the kind of helpless joy of the first sunny day after a long rain and the flower that blooms not necessarily because it wants to, but because that is what is when the world happens this way, the sudden unfurling into brightness.

Later, Dana said it was the best half-hour she'd ever seen them do and she kissed Danny on the cheek and he hugged her because she knew what it was to love Casey. Handsome, diffident, loyal, heartbreaker Casey who murmured like lovesongs in his sleep.

\+ + + +

It was a love triangle, which surprised all of them because they'd thought it was something that didn't exist in real life, not really, not with all these perfect counterbalances and outside distractions, but at the end of the day, they knew without speaking, Dana and Casey and Danny, that if it ever came down to them against the world, it would be the three of them together, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder.

\+ + + +

Dana was not what Danny expected, when he found himself holding her. She was shorter than he'd thought, shorter than he was by a good amount. Her bones were more delicate and her skin was pale and luminous in a way he'd never noticed, but then, he had never seen so much of it at once. She was finely put together, but she was strong in his arms as she pressed against him.

He whispered her name against her mouth and she smiled against his lips. "We have almost the same name," she whispered back, and though her voice was muted against his skin, he understood.

"We must belong together," he said, and kissed his way down her throat and between her breasts. She had the bones of a bird and the heart of an ox, and he wondered that her rib cage was enough to contain that heart, with its endless capacity for love. He traced her ribs under her fine skin and wrote the story of their love over the gentle curve of her stomach.

\+ + + +

On Wednesdays they played basketball, Danny and Casey, in the pathetic court in the CSC building that was really a raquetball court with a hoop hung over the door. It was ridiculously loud with the thud of the ball and the squeak of their shoes, like the end of the world in the small box of the court, and they grunted as they went for layups they could no longer make. They played a physical game, jostling each other in friendly aggression, the game of people who had played often enough to know the exact limits of each other's plays. Sometimes Casey would walk on his hands, just to prove he still could, and Danny would practice trick shots and watch, upside down. Then Danny hit the showers as Casey jogged up the stairs to meet the nanny with Charlie - now and again they both went, and once they'd used the elevator, but it smelled of their sweat and deodorant for a week afterwards and that was somehow pleasant but awkward as they went up 48 stories with the other passengers wrinkling their noses.

Charlie came down to the locker room with Casey and Danny sat with him on the bench as Casey showered, and then they all went out for pizza and Danny wore his ridiculous baseball cap turned backwards on his head to prove he was still young and hip. The waitress always smiled at them and brought Danny a beer on the house and Danny let Charlie have a sip once, which made Casey squawk at him, but Charlie wrinkled his nose and said he didn't like it anyway.

It was a tradition. It felt like family. The basketball came after whenever the four o' clock ended until 5.30 when Lisa came: Dana always let both of them skip the six o' clock. They ordered the same pizza each week and talked about Charlie's school and his baseball games. Charlie always picked off the olives and gave them to Danny, negotiating for pepperoni slices in return. After pizza, they took Charlie back to their office and polished up the scripts while Charlie did his homework and Dan would bend over the page to help him with long division until he had to go to the eight o'clock, from which Casey was excused, and then Lisa or the nanny came at 9.30 to take Charlie home.

"Hey, little man," Danny always said, high fiving Charlie, "good show."

"Good show, Danny!" he would say, and hug Casey. "Good show, Dad." And he would wave all the way to the elevator.

On Wednesday night, Casey smiled at everyone.

"I hope someday I have a kid like that," said Danny once, a little wistful, and Casey thought of Dan's head next to Charlie's, bent over math homework. It was a heartwarming scene. He loved that Danny loved Charlie. It made life so peaceful.

"You'll be a great dad," he said, and Danny got that slow smile across his face. Casey felt like the sun had come out.

"Thanks, Case."

The week always went by in a blur until Wednesday, the bright spot on the calendar. Summers were better because the weeks Charlie wasn't at camp, he didn't have homework, and the three of them played trash can basketball in the office and Natalie would bring cookies for Charlie and Dana would stop by to mother him in her vaguely awkward way, ruffling his hair in an affectionate but distracted way.

"Are you and Danny partners?" asked Charlie, during one of the rare interludes when the office was clear of well-meaning women.

"Of course," said Casey, a little distracted by one line of the script that just wouldn't read right. He wondered where Danny had gone.

"Oh," said Charlie. He paused. "Are you going to move in with him?"

"What?" said Casey, and pushed away from the computer. "Are we going to move in together? Why would we do that?"

"Greg at school said his mom had heard you were partners and you were going to move in together," said Charlie. "That would be fun. Then we could play basketball on the weekends."

"Charlie," Casey began, "Danny and I aren't that kind of partners." He hesitated. It was a difficult conversation to have. "To move in with someone, you have to be in love."

"Mom says you were always in love with Danny," Charlie volunteered, "more than her, anyway."

"Your mom says a lot of things," Casey said and then stopped. He wasn't going to badmouth Lisa to Charlie. "I do love Danny, but maybe...."

Danny, with his inopportune charm, chose that moment to appear in the doorway. "Thanks, Case, never knew you felt that way."

"Danny!" Charlie went to him. "Do you love Dad?"

"Sure," Danny said easily, doing the slouchy thing where he put his hands in his pockets. "Don't you?"

"'Course," said Charlie, and went on, stubbornly, "then why aren't you moving in together?"

Dan sat on the edge of his desk and patted the spot next to him. Charlie hopped up, and Dan leaned in and pointed at Casey. "I'll tell you a little secret, Chas. Your dad is a terrible cook."

Charlie looked skeptical. "He makes good pancakes, though. And if you moved in, we could play basketball on the weekends. I never get to play." He looked up at Dan with the poor-me face that Casey had to work so hard against. Dan gave him a one-armed hug.

"You know what, sport? Even if your dad and I don't move in together, I'll still come over so we can play basketball on the weekends. Okay? But only if you get all your homework done."

"It's summer!" protested Charlie. "I don't have any homework, Danny."

"You're doing better than me," said Danny, and hopped off the desk. "I've got some work to do, sport, but you can stay there if you want. Or you can look up game scores for me. Kim should have them. If you ask nicely, I bet she'll give them to you."

Charlie beamed. "Okay!" He slid off the desk and scampered out of the office.

"Danny, I," Casey started and Dan looked up at him.

"You don't have to explain, Case," he said, and looked back at the screen.

"Lisa said something, and some kid at school said something, and he got the wrong idea."

"Did he?" Danny's voice was distant, distracted.

Casey tried to laugh. "He wanted to know if we were partners."

"Aren't we?" said Danny in that same far-off way.

"Yeah, but..." Casey trailed off.

After a moment, Danny looked up, and his face was serious. "I love you, Case. I always have." Then he looked back and his screen and started typing. Charlie ran in with the scores and a lollipop and Danny grinned at him. "Thanks, sport! We could use a pair of hands like you. Are you looking for a job?"

"You can't afford me," said Charlie, and gave Dan a high five, and Casey wondered where he'd picked up that line.

"That's my boy," Dan said. The phone rang and it was the lobby guard saying that Lisa was here. Casey, feeling as if he were moving through water, or possibly lead, took Charlie down in the elevator. Lisa was a woman-shaped sense of coldness in the universe, as usual, but at least she warmed up when she asked Charlie how dinner had been, and Casey watched them go. No wonder she said he had always loved Danny better: maybe he had. Danny had been there for him, a safe haven. More than once he had opened the door at three a.m. when Casey was wrecked with sorrow and Scotch. Danny was warm and he cared for Casey a great deal more than Lisa ever had.

It was startling to suddenly realize just how much Danny cared, and how much Casey cared back.

Casey eyed the elevator with distrust. The office was suddenly a surreal place, not in a bad way, just in a way that Casey had never expected to happen. He stepped into the elevator wearily when the lobby guard started eyeing him, and pressed the button for their floor. He moved through the halls in a daze. His lips were numb but his hands tingled. He felt drunk.

Danny was staring at his screen when Casey walked in, fussing about something. "Case, explain to me again why people are entertained by soccer. Can I say that people should just stay home and drink beer instead of going to this game that's predicted to be a zero-zero tie?"

Casey leaned over Danny's shoulder and pretended to read the screen. "Nope. Tell them to get out and support their sides. That's what we do." Danny grumbled but started typing and Casey stayed where he was. "Danny," he said quietly, "why didn't you tell me?"

"I figured you either knew or didn't want to know," said Danny, looking ahead, and Casey had no answer to that. He went back to his desk, but the words on the screen didn't seem to spell anything at the moment.

"Do you want to move in?" he said after a while.

"Get serious, Casey," said Danny, half paying attention. "We've got a show to do. I know we wrote most of the script early, but it needs some work."

"I'm serious," said Casey. "I think I love you."

"Thanks." Danny squinted at his script.

"Danny," said Casey, and he heard something new in his voice, and Danny heard it too because he looked up again. "I'm serious. I love you. Like that. No wonder my marriage tanked," he said, half to himself.

Danny studied him for long minutes, looking him up and down. "C'mere, Case," he said, and Casey got up and went over to him. Danny stood up, looking a little anxious, and put his arms around Casey. It was any other hug in the course of their long friendship at first, and then a little frisson played down Casey's spine that he suspected was connected with the smell of Danny's neck. Danny sighed as if he'd been holding his breath since the beginning of the world and his hand moved slowly up and down Casey's back. He patted a few times and then let Casey go, and Casey reeled a bit and wanted to lean against Danny for support.

"Okay," said Danny. "We'll talk after the show. Do you have beer at your place?"

Casey nodded.

"Good," said Danny, and there was that smile again, the slow one that seemed like Dan was gathering all the light from the world into his face. Casey's stomach twisted with joy and he wondered how he had never noticed this before, this thing between them, this amazing thing that they had talked around for years. He went back to the computer and the keyboard was lightning under his hands, and he knew he and Danny were invincible.

\+ + + +

Dana saw the quick flicker of jealousy in Casey's eyes as she danced with Jeremy, and the split-second flash of reluctance as she put her arms around his neck, but she had the warm indifference of tequila on her and "Boogie Shoes" was playing. Anyway, he loved her, and she knew it, and she loved him, and neither of them would ever do anything about it except be there.

Dana leaned against the delight of the alcohol in her and the rush of the show. "Dance with me, Casey," she pouted, and he put his hands on her waist. Her arms were loose around his neck. She danced close against him, moving sinuously, grinning up at him until he finally smiled back. He held her very carefully, in his mannerly way, and she knew he was thinking of Gordon, and she moved his hands so that he held her tighter, his fingers laced low over her back, and she jolted him with her hip until he was actually dancing.

"Dance, Casey!" shouted Dan in encouragement from across the office, where he was gyrating with the blonde from the bar who admired his writing. Casey grumbled and crabbed and eventually laughed. He had given in to the beer and tequila and the celebratory atmosphere. Dana pushed his suit jacket back off his shoulders and flung it over a nearby chair before she wrapped her arms around him again, tighter than before. Under her arms, the muscles of his shoulders and back were still firm, corded in the same places they had been in college, if a little less apparent. He was still put together right. Her hips still fitted right against him. They had done well by each other all these years. She flirted with him, casting her eyes up at him, and he laughed with his head tipped back, the rumble diffusing through her. They danced, Dana and Casey again the way they had been in their youth.

After an hour or so, the music changed to something slow and dreamy, and it was too late for all of this, but somehow nobody minded, because there were still couples scattered through the room. Dana rested her head on Casey's shoulder and watched Natalie with her dreamy face tucked up against Jeremy. Dan across the room was whispering to his lady, and from the curve of his neck, she could almost understand his sweet nothings. She could feel Casey's heart beating next to her own and for five minutes everything was as it should have been, if not for Lisa, if not for life: Dana and Casey, drifting together in a room full of music and loved ones, like the wedding reception she might never have.

"Casey," she said quietly, and he tensed a little under her, and kissed her hair. She could feel the ache in him, the knowledge of what could have been radiating off him, lost to the air with the heat of his body. She felt a little like crying and a little like laughing at the hopelessness of it all. This was all they'd ever have, these moments strung out along the length of their friendship. She pressed her face against his neck and sighed. He shivered a little and his hand moved fitfully up her back and then down, and the song ended.

She kissed his cheek as he found her coat and handed it to her, and then she took a cab home to her empty apartment.

\+ + + +

"Dammit," shouted Danny as he charged out of the elevator, "these pranks have got to stop!" He put his hands on his hips and stood sternly in the corridor through the office. It would have been more convincing, Natalie thought, if he hadn't been spiky-haired from the shower and dressed only in a towel. She crossed her legs against a sudden rush of heat in her abdomen, and hugged her clipboard against breasts that suddently felt heavier.

"Danny?" said Dana, passing through, "are you trying to institute a new dress code? Because I don't think Isaac will go for it." She grinned at Natalie, who smiled back and put the end of her pen in her mouth.

"Someone stole my clothes while I was in the shower!" Danny insisted, his voice a little higher than normal. "Casey and I were playing raquetball and then we went to shower and someone took my clothes."

"Was it Casey?" Jeremy suggested.

"No," said Danny, "he's still in the shower and he was in there the whole time. I wasn't looking. He sings."

Natalie looked him up and down with an appreciative eye. The towel sat a little too low on his hips and he fidgeted, trying to adjust it. He wasn't muscled in particular, mostly lean with a little belly accented by a trail of dark hair. His chest had a scattering of hair, and there were a few stray droplets of water on it. Natalie wished she could get him on camera: Danny was well put together, no Greek god maybe, but someone a girl wouldn't mind waking up next to for several consecutive years. She wanted him in an abrupt, unquestioning way, and found herself sauntering toward him without really meaning to.

The elevator doors opened and Casey strolled in, whistling tunelessly. He stopped and let his eyes drag over Danny. "Did you forget something there, Danny?"

"Someone stole my clothes! My sweaty gym clothes and my clean clothes!" Danny turned to face Casey and Natalie was treated to his smooth back. She admired the line from his shoulders down to his narrow hips, and the towel was slipping again: she could see the dimples at the base of his spine. He smelled of soap and the righteous heat of anger radiated off him.

Casey shrugged. "Wardrobe."

Danny's nostrils flared in frustration as he turned again to the office at large. "Great. Maureen is going to have a field day with this."

"So is Monica," said Casey.

"They don't have any underwear in wardrobe," said Danny, "I'll have to go commando. And I'll wrinkle my suit, probably."

"I bet they have some sweats somewhere in the back," said Natalie, "you guys change enough between sets when you're doing interviews. Or I could go out and buy you some clothes."

"Natalie, you're a lifesaver," Danny said, coming over to her. She resisted the urge to lick the droplets off his collarbones and splay her fingers over the pale skin beneath his navel. His nipples were beginning to stand up in the airconditioned chill of the room, and he had a few goosebumps.

"Sure," she said, "boxers or briefs? Or boxerbriefs?" She considered Danny briefly again, all that bare skin, and thought she'd bring back a pair of tight jeans and the thinnest t-shirt she could find. And boxerbriefs, the kind he'd worn before the time she'd stolen his pants, snug around his thighs.

"Anything's fine," said Danny. "Just come back soon."

"But if you do end up freeballing," said Casey drily on his way to the office, "that's definitely something you should announce on air."

"You better believe I will!" Danny said, and followed him. "Nat, I'll pay you back, is that okay?"

"That's fine," she said. Casey winked at her over Danny's shoulder and she surreptitiously pushed a sweat-fragrant bag of clothes a little further under her desk.

\+ + + +

It was Jeremy's fault, Danny thought later. Maybe Jeremy's credit. Either way, he had been pontificating about the historical significance of mistletoe when Dan crossed the threshold, and of course Dana had jumped on it and goaded them to kiss each other. Danny had grabbed Jeremy's face, going in for one of those just-miss joke kisses, but Jeremy misinterpreted his feint and their mouths crashed against each other for a half second.

It was enough. It was too much. Some spark hit them both in the few moments of the kiss, though they ignored it then. Danny passed the back of his hand over his mouth as people joked, and then he dragged Natalie under the mistletoe. Jeremy made a wry face and asked Dana to dance. At the end of the party, Jeremy found Dan just behind him in the shadows, watching everyone else dance like they'd had a little too much to drink.

"Was that something?" Danny asked him quietly. Jeremy felt Danny's breath on his neck and nodded carefully.

"I thought so," he murmured back.

"Want to get out of here? We don't do Christmas anyway."

They did many things later in celebration, and if Jesus' name was often invoked, it was their secret from the Christians.

\+ + + +

There was a dream Danny kept having, about Natalie wrapped in a white sheet on a broad white bed in a white room. Her skin was cream against the cotton, and her hair and eyes looked very dark. She was always looking away when he came into the room, but then she would see him and sway over on her little bare feet, the sheet trailing behind her as she clutched it to her breasts. She wrapped the end of the sheet around him too, until they were loosely bound together, her bare skin against his chest. He always began by running his hands over her curves, from where her breasts faded into her armpits to the flute of her hips and down over the round of her ass, and she stretched and hummed against him, reaching up to hold his head.

If he was unlucky, he woke up then.

If he was lucky, she drew his hands up to cup her breasts and kissed him as his fingers explored the undersides. Her small hands scratched lightly over his back. He could feel the length of her body pressed up against his and it was so good that it was almost enough, but Natalie, Natalie. She never did anything by halves.

It went different ways from there. Sometimes she put two fingers in his mouth, kissing him as he sucked on her fingers, and then she slid down his body and drew them up the sensitive underside of his cock, blowing across the wetness and then taking him into her mouth. Sometimes he slid down her body and kissed her curls, running his fingertips over her until she was nearly shrieking. Sometimes she slid her leg slowly up his leg until her knee was hooked over his hip and he could push into her, cupping her ass with both hands as she put her teeth into his collarbone. It was the Kama Sutra of dreams, but gentler and paler.

The end of the dream was always the same: he lay sated and exhausted on the crisp white sheets incandescent with his love for her, and she kissed him slowly all over and half-bit all the most sensitive spots she could find, just setting the edge of her teeth against his skin, and then she smoothed out the near-agony of anticipation with warm damp kisses and the touch of her fingertips.

No matter how far through the dream it was, Danny always woke up aching, lovesick and exhausted.

\+ + + +

Casey tried distracting himself with women, with Sally, but the name that came to his lips at the crucial moment was a strangled, "Daaaaaaaaa," and he never knew whether he'd been going to say Dana's name or Danny's.

\+ + + +

There was a moment when Danny knew, when Casey looked at him in the hallway with those open eyes, and said he wouldn't trade the last ten years for anything, and hugged Danny and the leather of his jacket was still cold from his haste.

There was a moment when Casey knew, when he followed Danny into the seder with the tingle still in his chest from how tight Danny had held him, and he saw that Danny had poured him a glass of wine anyway, and saved him the place next to himself.

April was the cruelest month, but it had come out all right. They leavened the bitter days that followed with love and laughter in the face of all that threatened to destroy them.

\+ + + +

Her fingers curled over one of his ears, her thumb nearly resting inside the curve of it, and her other hand moved to the back of his head as her tongue touched his, electric. He could feel her breath in his mouth and, he thought, the way it moved through his body, all the way down to his toes. His hands tightened a little on her hips. Her mouth against his was warm and open and he thought he might lose himself there, and was glad.

Danny whistled somewhere off in the background and Dana broke away, her fingers caressing the rim of his ear as her hand slipped away. She and Casey were both grinning, a little flushed.

"Looks like it'll be some new year," Danny said, and swept Dana into his arms. "Come here, you." He bent her backwards, vastly romantic, and kissed her quickly, but Casey noticed Dana's hands stayed on Danny's arms and her mouth did not open in such a way against Danny's.

\+ + + +

Danny had taken the wine back to his office during a c-break, corked it there on the desk and let it air. Even if Rebecca had gone back to Steve, that was no reason to mistreat an innocent little wine. A charming wine. He'd had such high hopes for it when he picked it out. He yearned toward it for the rest of the broadcast, his smile pasted on.

Rebecca, Rebecca, for whom he had tried harder than he ever remembered having to try. She had left him anyway.

He sloshed the wine into the mug Casey had given him once. The wine was lovely. Rebecca would have liked it. Danny went through half the bottle before he didn't want to cry anymore.

\+ + + +

Dana was always startled when men remembered things about her, though she didn't think she was unmemorable. It was just that people didn't tend to process much beyond her passion for her show, or that she didn't spend enough time with them for the little details to percolate through, or some other quirk that she hadn't labeled yet. But Danny remembered her favourite wine.

\+ + + +

Danny's New York Renaissance lasted through the winter, the dirty slush and the freezing winds, into the early summer. He forced everyone out of the office one Saturday and they took a picnic lunch to Central Park, all the deli foods that New York was justly famous for. They weighted down the corners of the blankets with discarded coats and the women's shoes. After the meal, the women sprawled ladylike on the blanket, absorbing the sunlight, stretched out with chins pillowed on pale forearms and half-bare legs crossed at the ankle, watching the men through eyes lash-heavy and narrowed against the brightness. They were all winter-pale, or city pale, since the sunshine that filtered through the windows did nothing for their tans generally. The men played Frisbee for a bit, just throwing the disc around, then tried long passes with Dan and Casey's football. It was a laughable effort.

"We're getting too old for this," Casey said at one point, bent over, hands braced on his knees, breathing a little heavily.

"Maybe you are," Danny retorted, dancing about him, feinting with the football. He looked over at the blanket, Natalie asleep, Dana pretending to be, Kim reading a trashy magazine and the shadow of the pages cast down her shirt, obscuring her cleavage. They were more beautiful than usual there against the grass in the park, the sunlight illuminating or shadowing curves just right.

"Look at these women," he said, standing up and staring at them fondly, almost worshipfully. "Just look at these women."

Casey put his shoulder against Danny's. "They really are something, aren't they?"

"We're lucky men," said Danny.

"If you're not going to play anymore, give the ball to someone who'll use it," said Dave, mock irritable, stealing it from under Danny's arm. Danny smiled at him over his shoulder, but he and Casey stood and watched the women for a long time, this miracle of flesh and bone and love and genius in their lives.

\+ + + +

And then there was the day that Danny lectured her, the day that Dana looked at Casey, really looked for once, and realized he'd been in love with her his whole adult life and she'd been in love with him her whole adult life, and so what if they had been children once in love, giddy college students with little sense of the future? They were still in love now. Casey had always been sensible, solid. And he had never given up on her, despite his broken heart, despite her ten thousand brushoffs.

Even if carriage rides were out of fashion, it would have been her and Casey, and it would have been magic.

She went home and buried her face in his sweatshirt, the one she'd had since one rainy day at college when they both got soaked to the bone and his dorm room was closer, and she cried a little for the time she'd wasted and the time Lisa had taken. The sweatshirt had long ceased to smell of Casey but she pretended it did. She pretended she could cry against his broad chest or on his shoulder. What chance would she have now?

She understood his fury over Gordon, over Sally. She understood the way he looked at her a little sad when she danced with him. She understood smoky, and it was all too late.

It was a matter of faith. It was a matter of love. And loyal Casey had given up on her at last, and she deserved nothing less.

\+ + + +

The brutal insanity of the dating plan is apparent to everyone but Dana. Danny aches and agonizes over it for Casey's sake. Casey seems numb. They go to the bar together. Jack brings them a bottle of scotch and leaves them alone.

It was inevitable, Danny thinks later. The scotch, the company of men, the fact that they have been Danny and Casey, a double act, for as long as they have known each other, and the fact that he has been quietly, desperately in love with Casey for almost as long, through the bad days in Texas and the bad days of Casey's divorce and now the bad days of Dana's inexplicable torture.

He wonders if Dana has specified that Casey had to date women and knows she had tossed it off as a given, Casey and women. But when he takes Casey home, intending to leave him at the door, Casey leans over Danny's shoulder as Dan fumbles with Casey's keys, so that Danny can feel Casey's breath hot and scotch-laced behind his ear, and then Casey kisses him there, lips gentle against the soft skin behind Danny's ear, and Danny's breath catches as he turns in Casey's arms.

They almost fall through the door, mouths open and warm against each other, and Danny knows he could think of himself as second-place, Danny swapped in for Dana, but it isn't that way between them. Between the three of them, there has always been this accord. Casey loves Dana loves Casey loves Danny loves Casey loves Dana loves Danny. I am you and you are me and we are all together. It just takes a shock for them to recognize it. They plan their lives around it, moving in this strange elaborate ritualistic wordgame, now and again drinking a little too much and acknowledging this great yearning.

Casey is the most beautiful thing Danny has ever seen, eyelids half-mast with desire and the entire rest of his body acutely attentive, all that beautiful musculature almost vibrating with a subtle tense energy. When he opens his eyes, they are bright with love. Danny nearly cries with the weight of all those lonely years pressing against his heart, and now the weight of this joy that is stronger than gravity.

\+ + + +

Natalie was leaning over his shoulder, reading his script. She had come in this once all purposeless, maybe looking for Danny, but she had settled for him. Casey felt her hovering. She was all nervous energy and good perfume. He liked Natalie. She made him feel tall, manly, protective. Sometimes she made him feel stupid and that was good too. He always deserved it.

But it startled both of them when he turned his head just a little and kissed her. She sank into the kiss for a moment, her eyes fluttering closed, and then popped backwards.

"Casey!"

"I'm sorry," he said, puzzled but aroused. "I'm not really sure where that came from."

"I'm with Jeremy," she said, as if that were anything Casey hadn't known.

"I'll kiss him too if it will make you feel better," he said, not really listening to himself.

"Casey!"

He put the back of his hand against his forehead. "Do I feel warm? I think I'm coming down with something. Sorry, Nat, I didn't mean anything by it."

But he was fine, he knew, though the thought of kissing Natalie again kept returning, and it was an attractive one, even conditional on Jeremy. There was something about Jeremy's anal-retentive precision, Casey thought, that boded well.

Danny wrote most of the script that day, and shot glances across the room at Casey, who coughed now and again and pretended to be working.

\+ + + +

Somehow, it was incredibly sexy when Dana called him "McCall". It made him feel like a raw new graduate, like all those years of his youth hadn't been wasted on Lisa. Here was Dana, wanting him, and she had been waiting so long.

\+ + + +

"Hogs," said Danny. "Hoooogs. Not much of a mascot there, Arkansas."

"Are you referring to the wild red Razorback Hogs of Fayetteville?" asked Casey, abstractedly, not really looking up.

"Where do you come up with a name like that?"

"I was there once," Casey said, tapping at his keyboard. "Coach spun me some story about how they used to be the Cardinals. Then one day they played a good tough game and someone said they'd played like a bunch of wild red razorback hogs, which are apparently some kind of bizarre pig from the backwoods. So now they're the Razorbacks. Better than the Cardinals, anyway. Everybody and their brother's a Cardinal."

"That was the last good game they played," Danny said, frowning at his copy. He took notes for a few minutes and then looked up. "I sent Bobbi some flowers."

"That'll really make up for the last however many years of not having sent her flowers or called after you slept with her in Spain and didn't remember. God, Danny, I only wish I had your skills with women."

"The sad thing is, that's true," said Danny, still frowning. The companionable working silence drifted down over them, laced with the ambient noises of electronics and printers and the muted chatter of the office. It was a slow day, one of those molasses Tuesdays that drove everyone crazy. Danny let the end of the pencil rattle on the desk, not even noticing when Casey left, absorbed in the ins and outs of college football and the odds for the season. Danny didn't look up until Casey came back, a pizza box fragrant in his hands and a couple of beers in his coat pockets.

"Pepperoni and black olives," said Casey triumphantly, tossing the box down on the desk. "And I got your Negro Modelo from that weird little store. Don't tell Dana."

"I could kiss you on the mouth right now," Danny said, putting down the football copy at last and stretching. He popped the top off the beer on the edge of the table, his party trick, even though it would leave a mark and Dana would shout later.

"Okay," said Casey, grinning as he slipped out of his coat.

"What?" Danny blinked as he reached for the pizza.

"See what happened there?" Casey said, hanging his coat on the rack. "You, Rydell, are all talk."

"It's just that usually when I say that you blow me off, Case. Also, what?"

"It's Tuesday." Casey spread his hands. "I figure we could deal with some excitement around here. So? Put up or shut up."

Danny, looking incredibly puzzled, got up slowly and stepped forward. He brushed his lips against the corner of Casey's mouth and went back to the couch, cramming the end of a slice of pizza into his mouth.

"You are not a gameday player, my friend." Casey flopped onto the couch next to Danny and reached a long arm over him for the beer and a piece of pizza. "No wonder you can't keep a girlfriend."

Danny was still swallowing as he lunged, Casey thought, and the crush of his mouth was a little slick with the grease of cheese and pepperoni and a little bitter around the edges from the beer. It was like being drunk, Casey thought while he could still marshal the words into line. It was like skydiving. He'd never been skydiving.

When Danny released him, Casey reeled a little, breathless against the cushions. There was an olive on his shirt, caught on a button. Danny picked it off and put it in his mouth. He pointed at Casey, touched his bottom lip with a fingertip.

"Never let it be said that Dan Rydell is not a gameday player."

"We should do this every Tuesday," muttered Casey, shifting in his seat, pressing the cold bottle of beer between his thighs to quiet his sudden arousal.

\+ + + +

Dana and Natalie knew long before anyone else. Before Danny knew, even. It was the way that he put his hand out when he introduced the show, Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall, gathering Casey to him. Not deferential the way people thought, but inclusive, proving every day that they belonged together.

\+ + + +

Jeremy proposes in the editing room, quietly, somehow keeping it a secret, though he talked it over with Dan and Casey ahead of time and they agreed that it should be showy and romantic and in front of the entire office. He puts the little box on top of her shot sheets and when she catches sight of it and looks at him with eyes that are suddenly half her face, he swallows down his fear.

"Natalie, just to start with, I want you to know that I would have moved to Galveston or wherever. Anywhere. And I would have gone to any club to get you back, and I would have...anything, Natalie, I love you. I want to be with you. Wherever. Especially now that we're keeping the show. Will you marry me?"

He expects her to tackle him, and so he's startled out of saying anything about getting over or being over his parents' divorce when she just puts her hands gently on his cheeks and kisses him softly, no tongue or anything, just the aching sweetness of her mouth against his.

"I will," she says, "I do," and neither of them have ever been so happy.

\+ + + +

Danny had kissed him, sloppy and desperate, pinned him against their desk (now only Casey's desk) with one hand curled around the back of his neck and he had taken Casey's breath away. Casey was still struggling, had not been able to breathe properly for months.

Danny went to L.A. and never called.

When Casey was lonely, he looked up words in the dictionary and the thesaurus that they had never used, part of their unspoken complicated reliance on each other. He was tired these days, tired of all the ersatz Dans that sat next to him. He couldn't even remember their names half the time unless he looked at them, so he had given up most of the teases, though he had always loved them. They could not find a permanent anchor. Casey sat silent and jealous in the office and the scripts did not roll out the way they should have. He was tired of the show. It wasn't the same without Danny. He thought about Dana, about trying to make it work now that the dating plan was just a folly of the past, a story to laugh about at the bar, but Dana, seeing Calvin now and again, had a kind of quiet happiness that jolted Casey. He would never have been able to do that for her, he thought, and it would always hurt, but she was his oldest friend still and he would always be in love with her, so he was glad for her, that she'd found a kind of balance.

Casey himself felt less and less balanced every day.

He thought about calling Abby now and again, mostly when he was drunk, and demanding to know whether Danny was supposed to be keeping in touch. But then again, he knew Danny was keeping in touch with Dana and with Natalie and Jeremy. He had seen the guilty looks as they got off the phone, the edges of postcards.

This was the problem, Casey thought: he was attracted to women. He had been attracted to women almost as long as he could remember. He loved the curves under women's clothes, the way they smelled, their shiny hair, the weight of their breasts in his hands, the taste of lipstick, the taste of cunt when it came down to it. He had mostly thought that Danny did too, and anyway, if Danny sampled the city's men when he wasn't picking up all the prettiest girls in the bar, what was it to Casey? Casey was practically celibate and very nearly okay with it.

He had dreams, though, since the kiss, and that disturbed him. If he let his mind go, he found himself reviewing the thousand instances he'd seen Danny's skin, bare legs during the pants punishment, bare chest at the gym after the showers, the tender back of Danny's neck, even. The whole thing - he supposed it was a thing now - puzzled him. There were women and now there was Danny and it was the same but it wasn't, and it could never be the same between them, and he had never wanted to kiss Danny but he wasn't sure now if he didn't want Danny to kiss him again, just to see.

He thought he should have been repulsed, and for a brief moment he had been, so offput by the angle of Danny's jaw crowding his, not like any woman he'd ever kissed, and not that the list was long. But then it was Danny, and who knew him better, but by the time he thought about relaxing into the kiss, Dan had broken away, his eyes bright and his breathing ragged, and then he had bolted out the door and left only a whiff of beer and cologne in the air.

God. Danny.

He sent Christmas presents for Charlie and a book for Casey, a letter for Charlie and not even a little note for Casey. Casey smothered in his sleep, tangled in the covers. He woke up imagining he could smell Danny's cologne and that peculiar brand of Christmas melancholy of Danny's, when he wasn't sure he should be celebrating anyway and he missed Sam.

It only struck Casey now how well he knew Danny, how much he missed having someone who finished his sentences or understood them before anything was said. And if that kind of proximity and intimacy had led to a kiss, so what? Women kissed sometimes and it didn't have to mean anything. Casey and Danny could kiss, and it shouldn't mean that Danny had to go across the country and never call. And there were still the dreams of Danny against him, all lean muscle and too apparent bone, and those clever hands and clever mouth put to good use in the dark.

Danny should know him so well. He should know that California wasn't another planet, a last chance. He should know that Casey was about as sexually adventurous as an ear of corn but maybe he could work up to it, maybe, if Danny went slow and distracted Casey enough that he didn't think about breasts for a while and the lack of them. Danny should know that Casey knew he was worth it, because even if Danny would look like a bag of shit in a skirt, he mattered more than any leggy girl in a bar. He should know that Casey was hurting without him, professionally and personally. He should know that Charlie missed him too.

But of course Danny knew, if he wasn't calling. Danny, moving to L.A., made life all or nothing. Casey had thought before that Danny was bold and enviable, but life was complicated. They were more than friends and less than lovers. Family but not blood. Dan was necessary to him, but not to Casey's physical existence, except that Casey was sleeping badly now, and Alyson chided him for the sharpening planes of his face. "Eat a sandwich for god's sake, Casey," she said, "you keep losing weight and any runway model would kill for your cheekbones." But she always patted him on the shoulder as she left.

He never laughed anymore.

Natalie took pity on him one night, saw the heartbreak in his drunken eyes, maybe, and gave him Danny's number. But Danny was doing his show and Casey cursed the inventor of timezones and the slow roll of the earth against the sunlight and all he could say, brokenly, was "Come home."

It floored him that Danny did come home, tanned and cheerful, hugging everyone. He picked up Natalie and swung her around and crowed over her ring as Jeremy looked a little bashful. He waltzed Dana around the office and whispered in her ear. And he stood square in front of Casey and clapped him on the shoulder. Casey wanted to cry. There was this space between them now, three thousand miles and a little more that the imperial system didn't cover, and Danny for the first time in a long time had no circles under his eyes. His chin rose a fraction as he looked at Danny, and Danny tipped his head, and then they were hugging. Casey could feel Danny's ribs knock his as they both took long breaths as caution against sobs.

I have never been gay in my life, Casey thought there in front of God and Dana and everyone, and finished the thought aloud, a murmur in Danny's ear, "but Danny, I love you."

"We'll work through it," said Danny as if he'd heard the whole thing, and did not say how, or when, or talk about the quality of the light in L.A. when there was so much sunshine just now in New York, the city that Danny loves.

\+ + + +

Natalie loves it when Casey stands that way with his legs apart and his hands in his pockets, all college jock frat-boy style. It makes her feel like maybe Casey could be shaken out of his stuffiness, like maybe there are better expressions for him to wear than that default shit-eating-smug grin. She imagines them against the backdrop of her sheets, just idly, even though she has a suspicion she could talk Jeremy into just about anything if she tried hard enough. It passes the time.

\+ + + +

Danny went sailing and took Dana with him. It was broad summer, the kind of day that seemed spread thickly over the city, but out on the water the breezes were amazing, fresh and laced with salt. Dana sat on the raised deck of the little boat, wearing a sarong over her bikini, her head rolled back and her arms braced behind her. Danny leapt about in his manic, graceful way, adjusting this and that. He had taken off his shirt as soon as they got a little way out, and his skin glowed in the sunlight with the beginnings of a tan. She watched him through eyes half-shut against the glare; through the blurry lattice of her eyelashes, he looked unworldly beautiful, haloed in brightness against the white and wood of the boat and the blue of the water. The sails belled, full of wind and light.

"You need sunscreen, Danny," she said, lifting her voice against the noise of the water.

"I will be bronzed like the Greeks of old!" he said, retying a knot somewhere. "Besides, then you can fuss over me later, when I'm burned."

"I planned to have you flat on your back later," she said, "and if you're sunburned, that might interfere with my plans."

"A point well made," he conceded, and stood in front of her while she smoothed the sunscreen over him. She had kept it in the cooler just to watch his skin prickle into goosebumps. He leaned in and kissed her as her hands moved over his back, his tongue brushing her lips until her mouth opened under his. She whimpered a little in appreciation and he leaned closer and closer, his chest warm against her breasts, her hands still moving over his slippery skin. He broke the kiss and stood over her for a moment, breathing against her cheek. Her sarong was rucked up her thighs, tight around her legs. Her knees bracketed his hips and she tightened her legs around him and passed a palm full of sunscreen over his chest. His head lolled backwards and his nipples tightened under her hands.

"Wait," he said, and kissed her swiftly again before running a hand down her thigh so she would release him. "Let me get us out just a little bit further so I can use the sea anchor."

She let him go with a deep reluctance. He moved around again, adjusting this and that, leaning over the bow, and she thought she understood why he loved this, the salt spray and the cool breeze and the sunshine and the joyous isolation. The sunscreen was uneven over his skin, glossy in places and clotted smudgily in others, obscuring the lines of his muscles. He wrestled the sails a little, spilling the wind out of them as he rolled them up, but the light stayed in the fabric in pockets. She basked and watched and she was happy. Natalie would be doing the show tonight. It would be a good show. Casey and Bobbi would do right by her, because Casey had almost always done right by her and Danny, because he was a good man and a good friend. Danny would be sunburned here and there, but he was coming back to her.

"We're anchored," he murmured, moving up against her and tugging at her hips so that she arched against him and her pelvis was against his. The sarong was tight around her again and Danny tugged at the knot so that the fabric sagged and showed the bare spread of her chest over the edges of the bikini. He hummed low in his throat, a sexy sound, and if she hadn't been turned on already, she would have been then. He rubbed his cheekbone against hers, dropping a kiss on her earlobe, and slid the faintly scratchy angle of his jaw down her neck so that he could kiss her collarbones. Dana's elbows gave out and she slid down onto the deck with Dan hot and heavy on top of her. He pushed her wrists gently above her head. She felt metal bumping against the bones of her wrists.

"What's that?"

"Tiedown," he mumbled, kissing her throat. And because he was Danny, who listened and watched and noticed in a way that Casey and Gordon never had, he heard the little hitch in her breath and leaned up to look in her eyes. "Dana?"

"I think so," she said, shivering a little in the sudden breeze. Danny studied her, his thigh between hers.

"Sure?"

"Yeah," she said, and dropped her eyelids again. He rolled away, looking pensive. She throbbed where his leg had been pressed against her, and the metal of the tiedown was so solid against her wrists. Danny came back with a scarf of some kind and dragged the end of it over her stomach, making her muscles tense and flutter.

"Still sure?"

"Yeah," she said, although she wasn't quite and kissed his chest as he leaned over her to loop the fabric carefully around her wrists and through the tiedown. She moved her arms experimentally: she was comfortable, but secure. It was different. She nipped Danny's throat as he came back into focus.

"Dana," he said again, and the whole world was in her name, and it was funny she'd never known before. He undid the strings of her bikini tenderly as he kissed her, pulling the scraps of fabric away. He brushed the tips of his fingers all over her, followed by his mouth, but he kept one hand on her knee and pinned the other leg with his so she really couldn't move much, and she said his name and couldn't stop saying his name, the way it just rolled out of her. She was part of the ocean, part of the breezes, and his palm was just barely rough against her breast and he was mouthing her clit and then kissing her and god, she wanted to touch him, but her feet wouldn't move and her hands were above her head all wrapped up in his scarf and there was something unbearably sexy about it all, the open sea and all their bare skin. She managed to get one foot up despite the peculiar lassitude of desire and she toed off Danny's trunks and slid her arch up and down the back of his thigh. He groaned a little and moved away and she muttered his name on a note she knew was pathetic.

Over the gentle noise of waves against the hull she heard a slosh, and then the unmistakable damp foil sound of a condom wrapper. Danny verged back into her limited field of vision carrying a little bucket.

"Danny?"

"Trust me," he said, and cupped water over her from the bucket and she gasped at the chill and the strong smell of salt. He took her breast into his mouth and it was so hot after the water that it was almost painful and she loved it. She pushed her toes against his calves. He lifted his hips and splashed more water between them, over her belly, and then pushed a couple of fingers in her, and she made some indistinct noise she hadn't known she was capable of.

Water. Salt. Sunshine. Skin. The smell of sunscreen and heat. It was all coming to her in fragments.

Danny put his fingers in her mouth and really pushed into her, and in her blind desire she sucked at his fingers, kissed anything that came near her mouth, and Danny had bought the ridged condoms and he was at god, just the right angle and she wanted to touch him so much, but all she could do was wrap her legs around him as he got distracted, and his face was so bright in the sun that she could barely see it. It was perfect, it was too much, and she was coming with her breasts bare under the open sky and Danny heaving in her like the waves. He groaned, choked out her name, and loomed over her, his shoulders heavy between his trembling arms. She strained up toward him, brushing her breasts against his chest, and he collapsed against her side and undid the scarf with fingers that shook. She ran her hands all over him, gently, just loving, and he rinsed them both with the rest of the seawater that was getting tepid in its bucket, which stung a little, but it was good anyway.

"I love you," he said, and pressed a kiss to the base of her throat in that way that meant he was falling asleep.

"Danny," she said, and shook him a little. "Seriously. Sunburn. In all the wrong places."

He roused just enough to help the both of them down to the little cabin in the boat, and they fell asleep on the narrow bunk that wasn't really wide enough with the lifejackets for a pillow, but she was cradled against his chest and the roll of the waves was like a lullaby and later, later, she thought, she would make his toes curl and they would sail back in the dusk and go out for a nice dinner still reeky with salt and the sunshine smell of their love.

\+ + + +

It didn't bother Danny that Casey was in love with Dana. Hell, he was a little in love with Dana when it came down to it. She was all curves and crazy, and she got that brightness in her eyes when she was about to be particularly deranged that was somehow irresistible. She had good taste in shoes, too. Danny could respect that. He thought about talking to her sometimes, just like he thought about kissing her sometimes, to watch her eyes go all starry and her face get that high flush. They could swap anecdotes and gossip about which bits of Casey's rangy body they liked best. For all their prudishness and secrecy, Danny knew about the times they'd papered over the window to Dana's office and fucked on her couch. He was glad of it, if it kept them both sane. But all that was over since Sam Donovan, and all he and Dana could do was gossip.

On the other hand, it seemed like a better way to spend his time to just keep kissing Casey until Casey couldn't speak, and to keep touching any particular bit of Casey's body that struck his fancy, because it was turning out that Casey's heart was about as broad and fertile as all those Midwestern cornfields, and you could plant two crops there, if those crops were Danny and Dana. It just worked.

\+ + + +

Dana had fallen in love with Natalie at the very beginning, when Natalie showed up for her interview all bright eyes and little girl charm. She was just so damned earnest, so dedicated and passionate and female in this world all full of men with their height and their broad shoulders that threatened to crowd her out. Dana saw that Natalie knew how to throw an elbow, knew how to get through a crowd. She hired her.

It was weeks later that she found Natalie pressed up against her in a bar, out of sight of Dan and Casey.

"Dana," Natalie said, her voice whisky husky in the smoke of the bar. "I want you." She pressed a vodka martini into Dana's hand, which Dana had thought was impossible in this Texas cowboy bar, and her other hand played with the inseam of Dana's jeans. Dana closed her eyes. She had always been a little out of place in the posh girls' schools, among her brothers, among the men of the network. But Natalie's nails drew lines up the insides of her thighs and something felt right. She kissed Natalie, hard and hungry, and Natalie melted into her, her fingers still restless between Dana's legs, and they left the bar.

\+ + + +

"Casey, Casey, Casey," said Danny, shaking his head a little.

"What?" Casey paced from one end of their office to the other.

"You gotta settle down, man. It's not gonna happen."

"You don't know that."

"I know Dana," said Danny, as if that were enough. "She's not gonna marry Calvin."

"She said yes to Gordon," Casey pointed out, and kept pacing.

"Case, look," said Danny, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands laced together. "I appreciate your tension, given the situation. On the other hand, we have a show to write. So either sit down and write or get your big block head out of my office for a while."

Casey glared at him. "I don't have a block head!"

Danny scoffed. "How many years have you been on television, my friend, and all this time you have failed to recognize that your head describes an almost perfect rectangle?"

Casey let that one go for later. "She's gonna marry him, and then we're gonna lose the show."

"So?" Danny leaned back into the couch.

"So?" Casey whirled on him. "I can't believe you'd be so blasé about this."

"Casey, even if we were to lose the show," and it was a sign of Casey's mental state that he didn't even nod appreciatively at Danny's correct use of the subjunctive, "we've had five years. That's three more years than we thought we'd have. You and I can get new jobs, maybe even together. ESPN offered us that thing before, us and Dana. And Charlie's old enough that if you did have to move, he'd be okay with it, especially with Lisa mellowing out so much since she remarried."

Casey looked skeptical. Danny sighed and patted the cushions. "Come sit with me, Case. We'll go over the games today and we'll order some pizza. It's not like you were ever gonna make a move on Dana anyway."

"I could have," Casey said, and sat down suddenly and buried his face in his hands. "God, Danny, what am I going to do?"

Danny pushed his shoulder against Casey's companionably. "You're a handsome, articulate, funny man. You'll have plenty of options. Anyone in their right mind would want to sleep with you. This thing with you and Dana was way too complicated to ever get off the ground. If it were gonna happen, it would have happened a long time ago."

"It isn't about sex, Danny. I love her."

Danny put a gentle hand on Casey's knee. "Casey, everyone knows that. But there are other people who love you. You're not the kinda guy who's gonna die alone." He squeezed Casey's knee reassuringly and was about to take his hand back when Casey's flattened over his.

Casey looked up. "Kiss me."

"What?" Danny's eyebrows shot up.

"Kiss me. You said anyone in their right mind would want to sleep with me. Prove it."

"Case, I..." Danny fumbled for words. "I mean, you know I'm not in my right mind, remember all that therapy?" Something broke in Casey's eyes and Danny swore silently and grabbed Casey's chin and kissed him. Casey's mouth opened like a desperate teenager's and it was almost like they were wrestling more than kissing. Danny had wanted to keep it polite and noncommittal, but Casey's fervor was infectious and Danny gave in and kissed Casey like he meant it. Casey kissed back with all that Midwestern earnestness and Danny knew he was lost. When they broke the kiss, they were both panting.

Casey jabbed a finger at him. "How long have you felt that way?"

Danny passed the back of a hand over his mouth, which was swollen where Casey had bitten him. "Always."

"And you never told me?"

"Dude, is that a thing you say to other guys? To your very straight and manly best friend? You and I, we talk as men do. When I met you, you were married and you had a baby son. What was I gonna say? 'Hey, Casey, let me tell you how much I love baseball and also I love you'. This is sports. It's dangerous. And there wasn't any reason to tell you, just like you never told Dana."

"That's different. Leave Dana out of this."

Danny shrugged. "How can I?"

Casey stared at him for a moment and then wedged his head between his hands again. "Shit."

Danny leaned into the corner of the couch and picked up his pad and pencil again. "I didn't want this to happen, Casey, because I knew you'd freak out and it wasn't worth it. I loved you and I loved Charlie and I loved Dana and I wanted the show to hold together and I knew you'd freak out."

"I'm not freaking out," Casey mumbled.

"Case." Danny's voice was amused and tender and a little ragged around the edges. "Who knows you better than I do?" He stood up. "I'm going to go to the editing room so you can pace in peace."

"Danny..."

"Think about what you want on your pizza," Danny said cheerfully, and walked out. "Hey, Nat," Casey heard him say, "when's Jeremy popping the question?" Casey groaned and stretched out on the couch with his arm crooked over his eyes. His lips stung and he pressed his palm against them, but it wasn't the same as the pressure of Danny's mouth. He lay restless on the couch for a while, but it smelled like Danny's hair gel and Danny's deodorant and just Danny generally and he couldn't write or sleep.

He found Danny on the couch in the editing room, scribbling away. Jeremy was bent over the editing machine, peering at the screen in his anxious myopic way.

"You should go for it, man," Danny was saying. "You know she's not going to turn you down. It's Natalie. She's been wild about you since the minute you walked in the door. Just do it, J." He paused. "Okay, trying to give you a last-minute nickname was a mistake, but my advice is sound."

"And yet I remain nervous," said Jeremy, adjusting his glasses. "Hey, Casey."

"Hey, Casey," said Danny, and his lips quirked in that Danny way. "Thought about the pizza?"

"Sausage," said Casey automatically. "Jeremy, can I talk to Danny for a minute?"

"Sure," said Jeremy, peering at something again. After a moment he looked up at Casey. "You mean, by yourselves? Can't you go to your office? I'm trying to get this ready for tonight."

"No problem," said Danny, getting up in his lean and easy way. He clapped Jeremy on the shoulder. "Do good work, buddy. And don't worry about Natalie. She's in a good mood lately."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Jeremy dryly. "There's always an equal and opposite reaction."

Dan and Casey moved through the bullpen without speaking, though Kim waved something at Danny and he jerked his chin at her in thanks. Danny settled into his chair and left Casey the desk, and started tapping immediately at his keyboard.

"What's on your mind, Casey?" he asked after a bit, when it became clear that Casey was staring at him instead of writing. "You remember we have a show tonight, right?"

"I think we should get Indian takeout instead of pizza," said Casey, buying time. "Change it up. Danny..."

Danny looked up. "Casey. Seriously. I love you and I always have, but right now we have to write a show, so we'll talk later, okay? You can come home with me and we'll talk until you know everything you want to know and everything will be okay. Do you need me to take basketball for you?"

"No," said Casey slowly. "I'll get it done." And he did, by burying himself in wire reports and ignoring Danny's tuneless humming, and he could feel his writing get less and less stilted as the realization sank in that Danny was in love with him.

Danny, across the room, felt like one of those chocolates with the gooey centers, except that his was relief instead of cherries, because Casey hadn't run away yet. But, he thought, if Casey did run, they'd both break into about a thousand pieces, because Dana was coming back with a ring on her finger and that was life. He knew Casey knew it, too, but Casey was hard at work, making his inscrutable notes on all the copy and touch-typing in his awkward way.

They would talk. It would be fine or it wouldn't. They would lose the show or they wouldn't, and Danny thought not, given that Dana was at her happiest when charging around the office, and a husband or a baby wouldn't stop that. Casey had kissed him back and it was a good start and it was going to be a good show, and no matter what happened, things could only get better. He thought he could hear Abby laughing at him the way she had the last time he'd turned up. "Go home, Danny, go and live your life."

He would. And he'd do it with Casey, and they'd both be doing this job they loved.

\+ + + +

They spent a whole half hour once in Texas practicing their sideways high five over their pitiful anchor desk at Lone Star Sports.

"Why are we doing this?" Casey asked once.

"Casey," said Dan patiently, "some day we're going to make the big time. Trust me, buddy, you do not wanna choke the Five on national tv."

"We're going to be doing this on national tv? I thought we were going to be talking about sports," Casey wisecracked.

"Just in case!" Danny insisted, and Casey rolled his eyes but went along with it, because there was something about Danny's earnestness and his way with words that made him irresistable. At the end of thirty minutes they had it down: a quick flicker of the eyes and some kind of deeper tuning that meant they found each other's palms every time.

"Yes!" said Danny, and threw his arms up in victory. "Little Natalie! Come dance with me!" He'd waltzed Natalie all around the studio until she'd blushed and laughed with her head thrown back, and Dana had come out too and sat with Casey until he'd dragged her off to teach Danny by example to foxtrot. It had been a good night. Casey thought that Danny still knew how to foxtrot, although eventually he'd had to give up on teaching by example and pull Danny into his arms to count it out with his foot occasionally hooked around Danny's foot to get him to move the right one at the right time.

That, Casey thought, was the start of it. That was before St. Crispin's Day, before they'd really gone on the air. Just him and Danny and the flats of their hands pressed against each other over the span of the desk, and the tingle in his palm all night as he lay in bed next to Lisa with his hand cupped over her belly.


End file.
